Oven
Description
Henrik Boman & Monika Nilsson
Southern oven (z)
The oven (z) is built behind the existing lava incertum wall in the southern ambulatorium of the peristyle. Room i was presumably a room originally extending along the S side of the garden. The room was remodelled when the oven was built, and the E side of the oven functions as the western wall of room i.
The oven is constructed of brick, limestone, lava and limestone incertum, and large quantities of dark brown clay mortar. The front of the oven is built in brick, reused tiles, well-cut limestone and material from the pre-existing walls in the area. The opening, c. 0.4m in height and 1.0m in width, is lined with lava boulders. Below the opening the oven is constructed in lava incertum.
There are two tile-paved benches flanking the oven and plaster remains on the front of the oven, which indicate that a bench extended in front of the opening to the oven.
The dome of the chamber is built in brick, on a foundation of raised lava stones, and it is finished with half of a dolium at the top. The use of a dolium is without parallel in Pompeii. There is a similar construction in the oven seen in VII 12,13, though it is in a bad state of preservation. The vessel at the top is here considerably smaller than the dolium in V 1,15.
White ground wall plaster is found on the wall behind the oven, indicating that this part of the house originally constituted a decorated room.
Northern oven
The northern oven was completely destroyed by a bomb hit in 1943. Nothing more than some crushed lava stones, brick, tiles and dark brown clay mortar were found scattered in the area of the N oven.
